Central Michigan instructor shot to death in North Carolina, remembered as dedicated employee
By Maria Amante || April 24, 2011
A man his students called a “great and knowledgeable” instructor was gunned down and killed late last week in North Carolina.
Robert Barber
On Friday morning, Robert L. Barber, a temporary, ProfEd employee of the Doctorate of Health Administration Program, was pronounced dead at the scene by medical personnel two miles from his home in Charlotte. He was 64.
Steven Berkshire, director of health administration, said Barber taught at Central Michigan University for six years and was currently teaching a health care finance course online.
“(He was) intimately involved with our program,” Berkshire said. “Several students are mortified he’s gone, and talking about how much he’s been a help to them, not only to their degree but also their career.”
Barber also worked as a director of financial services at Carolinas HealthCare System.
Barber was married to Debbie Barber and had two adult stepsons, Eric and Brian.
This is a very picky comment on a sad story, I know, but when did "mortified" start being used to mean "very unhappy" rather than "deeply embarrassed?" This isn't the first place I've seen it. Are thesauri to blame, or is there some other explanation for this drift in meaning from the quite precise to the much more sweeping (and hence less useful)?
ReplyDeletePeople too lazy to look up the meanings of words.
ReplyDeleteRIP Robert Barber.
@CC - That was my reaction, too. It's also a particularly bad choice when writing in reference to someone's death, given the word's obvious derivation.
ReplyDelete(Maybe this is a good example for our students of how unclear writing / poor word choice can deflect a reader's attention away from the author's intended message.)